Petya Ransomware Attacks Your Entire Hard Drive
What is the Petya Virus?
Petya is a virus going old school by attacking the master boot record of a PC. While MBR viruses are not new, they have not been very common recently. However, ransomware has been very common in recent years. Petya takes ransomware to a new level by not just encrypting the data files on your PC, but encrypting the entire drive; turning your PC into a brick with no access to any of the hard drive contents. Unless you pay up, of course.
Even worse, it appears that, according to Naked Security, the virus handles the GUID Partition Table of newer Windows systems poorly and even if you pay the ransom, the virus will not be able to recover the data. Good luck trying to get a refund on that ransom.
For more information on this virus, check out the full overview here.
Prepare for the Worst
In order to protect your business from this and any other security threats, have a good security policy in place. It’s incredibly important to have a reliable and tested backup system. Best of all, talk with your IT managed services provider to go over what would happen if a server or individual PC is infected. Ask about:
- Time to recovery if infected
- How often data is backed up
- When was backup recovery last tested and how
- Security policy in place to prevent infection
We posted information about ransomware last year in regard to Cryptolocker. Our recommendations there are still valid.
Just Outside the Door
While many virus infections are simply a matter of annoyance and inconvenience, the newest ransomware threats are proving to be costly and sometimes fatal to businesses. Businesses must protect themselves from thieves by locking doors and securing valuables. The same holds true from a computer security perspective. Don’t leave the doors open. In fact, lock your network down as if someone were just outside the door trying to get in because they are.
UPDATE: An article csoonline.com talks about the rise of ransomware. Most notably…
“Research from Trend Micro shows that there were more Ransomware infections in February 2016, than there were in the first six months of 2015. Yet, only a fraction of Ransomware attacks are actually reported.”